I think I checked the CV cleanup thread and didn’t see any rhododendrons. However, that thread was closed and archived, so when I found this one I thought this was the more appropriate one to reopen for this specific case. I mentioned it over in the IdentiFriday thread.
I also just found out about R. maximum ‘Roseum’ - a hybrid between R. maximum and R. Catawbiense ‘Roseum’ which itself is a hybrid between R. catawbiense and something else, possibly R. ponticum. I think I probably misidentified a few of those myself based on bracts around the buds and will have to retrace my IDs again…
Should I add flags to some of these often misidentified rhodos to alert others to the existence of the frequently observed cultivated hybrids? Based on everything I’ve been seeing so far, I think there’s a >95% chance if it’s in a garden or city park that it’s a hybrid and not a species. Not sure what the current “best practices” are to get the word out about this. Also still no response to my flag on whether Rhododendron x hybridum could/should be used for these.
Agreed, changing the common name would probably help in this particular case. The most “common” rhododendrons in the US by far are the planted hybrids.
What would be your judgement on an obs like this one? is this a R. catawbiense or something else? Its in a state park in PA, so not in a likely place to be a cultivated one, but also (AFAIK I could be wrong) outside of the general range of that species, at least from what I could find from a quick google search
Haha, how fun! Yes, “something else” and specifically I think the ‘Maximum Roseum’ hybrid I just mentioned above, just down the road from what looks like a Catawbiense hybrid at the park office. There are so many hybrids and cultivars that I’m not sure I get all their names right, but neither of these look exactly like our native species, and R. ponticum as species can be ruled out because it would not be winter hardy there (requires zone 6b or warmer). This county is zone 5b-6a.
How did it get there? Well, I assume there was some landscaping done and a few shrubs planted. One of the observations is at the edge of the parking lot at the park office, so that’s a prime spot to plant some flowers after putting the parking lot and building there. The other is near what seems to be a camping/tenting area. I’m guessing that might be another spot where some development and landscaping might have been done. Without knowing what the area looks like, it’s hard to tell.
Another thing I’ve noticed when looking for pictures of all these possible hybrids is that they are frequently mislabeled even at the nurseries that sell them. E.g. Rhododendron ‘Maximum Roseum’ becomes Rhododendron Maximum ‘Roseum’ and next thing you know it is promoted as a great native plant choice for your garden. People looking for native plants/cultivars of species may be picking these up and planting them, unaware that they are actually planting hybrids. Same thing seems to happen to the Catawbiense hybrids, e.g. Rhododendron ‘Catawbiense Boursault’ becomes Rhododendron catawbiense ‘Boursault’ on plant labels at the store.
I don’t think there’s any issue with posting it here, was just making a suggestion that some folks used to look at that thread and you might get more help there - I didn’t know it was closed. FYI, mods can open locked threads and are usually happy to do so if someone can provide a reason (this would be fine).
I have zero rhododendron experience, but it seems like Pontic Rhododendron could be made the default common name for this taxon in English and the common left as an alternate. This might cut down on the mis-IDs, but I don’t have enough experience with this group to know if that’s a reasonable approach. If that is reasonable, I can make the change.
I’m almost tempted to pull up google maps road view for the ones at this spot and see if I can get a better idea of what the landscaping looks like - its hard to even figure out what is intentionally planted in beds and what is just wild escapees when the shot is a massively zoomed in picture of the flower or leaves and nothing else.
I totally feel what you’re saying about people just picking stuff from the garden center because they assume its a native - I run into the dang issue myself all the time, trying to find natives or proper information about hybrids and cultivars is hard as hell, especially with some of these plant companies that purposefully obfuscate things because they’re trying to protect their copyright.
Honestly this looks like a nightmare, and more power to you for trying to tackle it - The most I’ll probably be able to do is go knock some stuff up to genus level, I’m not a plant expert by any means, and some of these are pictures of a few leaves and nothing else.
EDIT: So this is almost certainly another hybrid then. I can’t even fathom why anyone would have intentionally planted hybrids in these parts of these parks, this one isn’t exactly on a main road, its up a hiking trail near an overlook.
They may also be leftovers of plantings from a time long before the parks were established. The Catawbiense hybrid cultivars can outlast any human (their lifespan is given as 75-100 years, but I’m convinced they can last even longer) and they have been around for at least 200 years for garden use. ‘Roseum’ can be traced back to at least 1850. They may be persisting and/or naturalizing where they were originally planted around human dwellings or along roads that no longer exist any more.